CGA, CPBL and Banks Holdings at odds over fate of citrus
There’s also more trouble in the citrus industry. The fate of an extraordinary general meeting to be called by the Citrus Growers Association this Friday to oust Dr. Henry Canton as chief executive officer of Citrus Products Belize Ltd. will be determined by the court in the next two days. Application for an injunction has been filed by attorneys representing Banks Holdings for a stay on the meeting. The Citrus Growers Association which has fifty-one percent shareholdings in CPBL is seeking the removal of Canton as CEO to be replaced by current CGA Executive Director Henry Anderson. However, Banks Holdings of Barbados which controls the remaining forty-six point eight percent of the company’s shares is supporting Canton. The CGA is claiming mismanagement and that the company lost substantial revenues as a result of an eleven-month contract with the company, C. Alvarez of the Dominican Republic. Under the terms of agreement, citrus was being sold to the company at ninety-eight cents per pound solid when its actual price was listed at a dollar, eighteen cents US by the New York Board of Trade. Today News Five spoke by phone with Hugo Succoro, General Manager of C. Alvarez who rejected allegations that his company was compromised by business conducted with CPBL.
Voice of: Hugo Succoro, General Manager, C. Alvarez
“This contract was in fact signed between myself and representatives of CPBL at that time. Going back in time I do remember two things on this contract, number one: that the market price for this specific commodity, the concentrated orange juice was maybe twenty to twenty-five cents per pound solid below the contracted price. Number two: I also remember back then that our customers in the Dominican Republic had another offer on the table from a supplier of this same product in Mexico. I believe the name of the company was Citro Fruit who was offering the price at I believe seventy-two cents a pound solid which I believe at that time the world price, the market price for that commodity. Our customers in Dominican Republic chose this product not only because of the quality of the Belizean product and the similarity of the taste of the Belizean orange to the profile the Dominicans look for in an orange juice but also the advantage that they were going to have as far as price was concerned because of the CARICOM agreement. So basically the seventy-two cents the Mexicans were quoting as they do not belong to the CARICOM agreement the Mexican import into Dominican Republic would have paid twenty per cent duty which at the end of the day would have make it more expensive than the quoted price we have for the Belizean orange, besides of course the quality and all the timely response from CPBL and the on time deliveries from CPBL.”
Succoro came to Belize to meet with CGA officials to clarify recent allegations that there were special accommodations made under the contract. Meanwhile, CGA has chosen to convene the extraordinary meeting after CPBL’s board of directors failed to call the meeting within a twenty-one day deadline.
